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the idea?”
    “You should have thought about seeing Brandon ten years ago.”
    “I did think about it, dammit.” He felt his irritation with Lauren grow and wished Tank wasn’t in the room. What, did Lauren think leaving Portland had been easy for him? That he’d been able to turn his back on his child without a second thought? He hadn’t had a serious relationship since Audra. Hadn’t even wanted one. It was as though that part of him, the capacity to love, had stayedbehind. “I offered to marry Audra, but your father wouldn’t hear of it,” he admitted.
    A slight pause. “You ran out on my sister. For money. I hardly call that a marriage proposal,” she said, now sounding tentative, wary.
    “She wanted two things that couldn’t exist together—me and her father’s support. Your father put conditions on his support, and you know what she chose.”
    “So you ran.”
    She was still looking for easy answers, still wanting to place the blame neatly on his back and walk away—with his son.
    “No, I asked her to leave with me. But she wouldn’t turn her back on Daddy and his wallet.” Harley shoved a hand through his hair. He hated dredging up the past, resurrecting old, better-forgotten feelings, but he’d known what this trip would cost before he came. If it was penitence and remorse Lauren wanted to hear, he had plenty of that to spare.
    “Listen, she clung to safety and security, and I guess I can’t blame her,” he went on. “I had nothing to give her.” Except his heart, he added silently. But that hadn’t been nearly enough for the spoiled Audra.
    “You’re lying,” Lauren said, but the pitch of her voice had changed and at last Harley sensed some uncertainty. “She loved you.”
    After ten years, he’d begun to doubt that Audra’s feelings had ever rivaled his own. When Brandon was only a few weeks old, she’d dropped by his mother’s house, without the baby, and given Beverly the birth details. But then his mother’s lover had left her and she’d immediately packed up and moved to California to be close to Harley. And neither of them had heard from Audra since.
    “She might have loved me a little, but she loved her lifestyle more,” he said.
    Silence again.
    “I know she’s gone now, and I’m sorry for that, Lauren,” he continued, “but if you could be big-minded enough to remember how she really was instead of seeing her as some kind of saint, I think you’d realize that I’m on the level.”
    Nothing. Had he made her angry? Or was she capable of being as fair as he was asking her to be? “Lauren?”
    “Meet me at Thai Basil,” she said at last.
    “That’s another restaurant?”
    “Yeah, at the corner of Twelfth and Yamhill. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
    “I’ll be waiting,” he said.
    “I just hope it won’t be in a car with red and blue lights.”
     
    H ARLEY WAS ALREADY at the restaurant when Lauren arrived. She recognized his sleek black motorcycle as soon as she got out of her car—only this time there was a shiny burgundy-colored helmet sitting on the seat.
    Nervously smoothing the denim skirt she’d chosen to wear, along with a white cotton blouse and a pair of high-heeled sandals, she took a deep breath. She’d thought that adding a few inches to her height might lend her some courage, but she was still only five foot six and mere inches weren’t enough to compensate for the fear rushing through her veins.
    She eyed the restaurant as though it was something dark and threatening. What if everything Harley had told her on the phone about Audra and her father was a lie intended to manipulate her?
    In that case, she was letting him make a fool of her. She’d certainly regret it and would definitely pay for it later.
    But what if he was telling the truth?
    This morning Chief Wilson had said that Harley had been picked up for an unpaid speeding ticket, posted bondand been released, which hardly made him a dangerous criminal. She’d taken Brandon